


The Value Of This Moment Lives In Metaphor

by lukeinallhisglory



Series: Muke [8]
Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Angry Luke, Angst, Arguing, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Coming Out, Declarations Of Love, Falling In Love, First Love, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Love, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 00:26:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7553062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lukeinallhisglory/pseuds/lukeinallhisglory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Luke and Michael are made for each other, but have to fight for it a little.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Value Of This Moment Lives In Metaphor

**Author's Note:**

> Ok...So this one almost went down a smut direction, which honestly, I feel like if you want to read that, I can write that as a follow up, but I avoided it, so it's just the suggestion, or more that that, it's an implication, but there's no smut, I promise. Wow, that was a run-on sentence! Anyway, I hope you like it, please let me know what you think. 
> 
> I'm not affiliated with 5SOS and this is just fiction. 
> 
> Title from "Backseat Serenade" by All Time Low. That's my favorite ATL song, which is seriously saying something since they have like 100 and I love all of them a lot. 
> 
> Enjoy Xx

The movie paused suddenly, bringing my attention back to it. “I have to pee,” Calum stood up and walked off, leaving Michael and I alone. I felt Michael’s eyes on me, and after a few seconds of attempting to ignore it, I relented and turned to him.

“What?”

“I need to tell you something.” His voice was quiet and when our eyes met he immediately looked away.

“Are you ok?” I asked.

“I like boys.”

I sat rigidly for a moment, trying to process what he’d just said. This was the first I’d heard that this concept wasn’t a myth. I’d never heard someone else say they liked boys. This was the first time it occurred to me that there might be a name, or an explanation for what I’d been feeling for years, besides the abstract idea of homosexuality.

I was aware of my own desperation to make myself like girls. I was aware that I felt sick over it, that I felt completely alone, that I felt as though I’d been wired the wrong way, something inside me twisted and connected wrong. It had never occurred to me that other people existed in this purgatory of self-hatred and dark confusion.

“Luke?” Michael’s voice is even softer now, embarrassed and nervous.

“I, uh…Yeah, me too.” I breathed out. We were both silent for a long time, Michael’s hand slipped around mine, squeezing my fingers.

“Don’t tell Calum,” he murmured, soft and desperate.

“Ok.”

There was an unspoken agreement not to bring up the subject again, which lasted a little over a month.

I heard my name being called from somewhere downstairs, muffled by the music playing through my headphones to the point that I couldn’t tell who was calling me. “Yeah?” I answered experimentally, pausing the song.

“Are you upstairs?” It was Michael.

“Yeah,” I called back. I heard him coming up the stairs, and then he was standing in my doorway. I waved him in and he closed the door behind him and sat down at my desk. “What’s wrong?” I asked, watching him carefully.

“I need to say something.”

“Then come here,” I patted the bed next to me and he sighed, coming over. He slipped his hand around mine, lacing our fingers. I ignored the quickening of my heart, and the pooling heat in my hand. “What’s wrong, Mikey?” I asked again.

“When I said I liked boys, I maybe could have been more specific,” he started, glancing over at me.

“Who is he?”

“You.” I froze, becoming hyper aware of his fingers slotted around mine, and the press of his knee against my thigh. “I’m so in love with you, Luke,” he murmured, almost whining.

For a long time I’d thought noticing the beauty in Michael didn’t mean anything more than noticing the beauty in a bouquet of flowers. It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d have to feel something towards him, to find him beautiful. Now though, with him sitting in my bed, holding my hand, I had lost my ability to think. “Me too,” I murmured. It was all I could manage to say, and somehow it was enough.

Michael grinned and squeezed my hand. “Can I kiss you?” He asked. I nodded without thinking and he twisted himself around, leaning over me and wrapping his free hand around my hip. My heart was beating loud enough for him to hear, sitting this close to me. I let my shaking hands drift up to his shoulders. His lips pressed to mine gently, light pressure and soft movements.

When he pulled away we were both smiling. “You’re the only person I’ve told,” Michael whispered, his face only inches from mine. I didn’t need to ask when he meant.

“Me too.”

“Luke, I want to be with you, but I’m not ready to tell anyone else.” It made me feel a little giddy, knowing I was in this special position that he wanted only me to be in. On the other hand, knowing we were keeping this secret from Calum made me feel a little guilty.

“What about Calum? He wouldn’t be upset.”

“I can’t,” Michael sighed. “Not yet, anyway.”

“So what, you want to date in secret? I’m not gonna date you in secret. You’re not a secret relationship kind of guy. I’m not ashamed to love you.”

“I’m not ashamed of you, more like scared. I just don’t cope so well, we both know that.”

“Then I guess that’s all there is to talk about, right?” I moved away from him, pulling my hand away.

“Lukey, come on.”

“I want you to go,” I mumbled, shrugging his hand off of my shoulder as he reached out for me.

“No.” He was persistent, but I was embarrassed and a little hurt, which ran much deeper.

“Michael. Leave.”

“Talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to say! You won’t be with me, fine.”

He reached out to touch me again, but I flinched away and he stopped. “Ok.” And he left, and I let him, despite the physical wrench that I felt in the pit of my stomach at the sound of his footsteps descending the stairs.

The next few months consisted mostly of me avoiding Michael as much as possible, Calum being somehow suspicious and oblivious at the same time, and Michael hooking up with anyone he could get his hands on. At first he was hooking up with girls, and that felt like it hurt more than anything else I could imagine, until he finally hooked up with a guy, and I realized how much more that hurt.

It was a little after noon on Saturday. I’d called him 3 times, all unanswered. I’d sent a few dozen text messages, all of increasing levels of anger. I was so angry, and completely unhindered by anyone else’s opinion, so I drove to his house. A glance at the usually full driveway told me that his parents weren’t home. But it was a Saturday, and Calum said he wasn’t with him, so Michael had to be home.

I knocked hard on the front door, ignoring the doorbell because knocking was far more therapeutic. “Michael!” I yelled, listening for a moment before knocking again. “I have a key, Michael! I’m trying to grant you the curtesy of opening the door by choice!”

“Shit, calm down, I’m coming,” Michael called from somewhere in the house. When the door opened I felt my chest gape open as well. My stomach felt too hot, and too tight. I tried to push past him, ignoring the jolt in my spine when he placed his hands on my waist to stop me. “What’s wrong, Luke?”

“You!” I shoved his hands off of me.

“What?” He asked, his face a picture of confusion.

“You hooked up with Jordan!”

“Oh,” he watched me carefully, processing my seething. “How did you find out?”

“He posted on Instagram!”

“He did? Shit!”

“You didn’t know?”

“No, of course not.” Michael pulled out his phone and scrolled through Instagram looking for the post. “Shit, shit, shit! Why would he do that? Fuck!” Michael cursed when he found it and read it.

“Michael!”

“What?” he asked, glancing back up at me briefly, and then setting his full attention on me when he realized how angry I still was.

“Are you kidding me?”

“About what?”

“He’s a fucking guy, Michael!”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You hooked up with a guy!”

“You know I’m gay. You’re literally the only person who knows that. Well Jordan, too, I guess.”

“A guy who isn’t me!”

“Oh,” Michael said quietly, not daring to say anything else.

“When it was girls, I got it, but now? Now it’s just mean, Michael. It’s humiliating, because I thought you wanted it to be me.”

“I needed to make some mistakes, and I didn’t want to hurt you. I figured it was better if I went into us, and coming out, and the rest of our lives together, knowing a little bit about what I was doing.”

I felt my face heat up at the mention of an “us,” and a future, but ignored it in favor of staying angry. “Well I hope it worked out because whatever we’ve been doing for the last few months; the staring and touching and avoiding, we’re done, Michael. If you can hook up with guys now, and it’s still not me, then I’m gone.”

“Luke, come on,” Michael sighed.

“I can’t be your friend anymore. It hurts too much. It’s all or nothing.”

“All then! I want all of you,” Michael shouted, grabbing my waist again, holding me in front of him.

“I don’t know anymore, Michael. This has become too tangled.”

“Luke, it didn’t mean anything. We were just-“

“Don’t bother,” I mumbled, cutting him off. I pulled out of his arms and turned away from him, starting back down his porch steps.

“Luke!” Michael grabbed my arm and spun me around. “I’m not letting you cut this conversation short.”

“What do you want me to say? You confirmed that it’s true, you don’t have an explanation, so whatever, I’m going home.”

“I love you.”

“Whatever, mate.” He flinched at the platonic nickname.

“Luke, please.”

“You know what, It’s my fault for thinking that you wanted me to be your first, so just forget it.”

“I do want that.”

“It’s too late, Michael!” I laughed bitterly, throwing my hands up in exasperation.

“What?” He frowned at me. “Oh god,” he gasped. “You think I slept with him? Luke, I made out with him, but I did _not_ sleep with him. I’ve never slept with anyone.”

“Wait, what?” I froze, staring at him, and then squeezing my eyes shut, covering them with my hands in an attempt to work this out in my head.

“Luke,” he murmured, and I dropped my hands, looking at him. “I promise,” his eyes were begging now.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

I sighed heavily and dropped down to sit on the porch step I was standing on. “I’m an idiot.”

“Not you’re not,” Michael murmured.

“And an asshole.”

“No you’re not.”

“God, I’m not your boyfriend, I have no right to be here, yelling at you.”

“I’m glad you’re here, love.”

“I’m honestly so sorry, Mikey.”

“No, don’t be,” he sighed sitting down next to me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders, tucking me against his chest. “You’re right, we’ve become so tangled. I shouldn’t have hooked up with him in any way. It should’ve been you.”

“I’m really glad you didn’t sleep with him.”

“Me too, love.”

“Can you please kiss me now?” I begged, grabbing at his shirt. He grinned and leaned in, pressing his lips to mine gently, deepening the kiss more and more until I was pressed up against the banister. It was desperate, and hot, and it showed each of us exactly what the other one was feeling. Before Michael it had never occurred to me that it was ok, to feel the way I did. It wasn’t until him that I considered that maybe I wasn’t wired wrong, just differently.

Telling Calum was an easy decision, and when it came to actually telling him, it ended up being even easier.

“Cal, can we talk to you?”

“You guys are fucking, aren’t you?” Calum mumbled, not even looking up from his phone.

“Um, well, no,” I stuttered, shocked by his response.

“But you’re gonna be.”

“Dude, we’re trying to come out to you, so could you like, I don’t know, put you’re fucking phone down?” Michael whacked Calum’s arm.

“Sorry,” Calum chuckled, dropping his phone on the couch next to him. “Go on, come out to me.”

“We’re gay,” I started.

“Yeah, figured that,” he smirked.

“And dating.”

“Mmhmm.”

“You’re the worst.”

“Lackluster coming out speech there, Lukey,” Calum teased.

“You’re a prick,” Michael chuckled.

Calum grinned, his smile softening after a moment. “I love you guys, alright?” he mumbled.

“Yeah, we love you, too. Right, Mikey?” I nudged Michael.

“Sure, of course,” Michael agreed.

The next few weeks were a sort of experimental period between Michael and I.

Michael had my shirt rucked up to my chest, his hands roaming, fingers dragging over heated skin. “Mike,” I whined, arching into him. He was perched on top of me, pinning me down at the hips. “Michael, Calum’s gonna be here any minute,” I panted into his mouth, trying to talk to him while he was trying to kiss me.

“Mmm,” Michael groaned, but he stopped kissing me, and his hands moved from my skin to the bed next to me, holding him over me. “He’s not gonna want to see this,” Michael flirted, biting at my jaw.

“Exactly.”

“Luke, I can’t exactly stop now,” Michael murmured.

“What? Why?” I asked, and then paused, realizing what he was trying to tell me. “Oh.”

“Oh,” Michael agreed.

“Um, do you want me to…?”

“I don’t even know what you’re about to offer, but the answer is yes,” Michael rushed out.

I laughed. “I don’t know what I was gonna offer either, that’s why I paused.”

Michael laughed, dropping his head against my shoulder. “Ok. I’ll just go take care of it. If Calum comes, just tell him I’m in the bathroom.”

“Where are you actually going?”

“The bathroom,” Michael chuckled, kissing my cheek and climbing off of me.

“Wait, Mikey,” I caught his hand and he stopped, perched half on top of me and half off.

“Hmm?” He hummed, smiling at me softly.

“I’ll just text him to come in a half hour.”

“Mm?” Michael hummed gently, considering it. “What will you say?”

“That you said you couldn’t come for another half hour.”

“Ok.” So I sent Calum a message that he probably saw right through, but I couldn’t be bothered to care as Michael grinned flirtatiously and moved back over me.

We also spent a lot of time talking quietly. It was important that we traded words that meant I love you, but weren’t actually those words. When it really comes down to it, it’s amazing how many things really mean I love you in the right situation.

“Don’t leave,” can mean it, when Michael’s tugging me down in bed, burrowing his face in my neck.

“I got you coffee,” can mean it, when I’m knocking on his door at 6 in the morning on a Saturday, trying to entice him into coming with me to watch the sunrise.

“Happy birthday,” can mean it, between kisses, and before our clothes started coming off.

“I need you,” can mean it, when he’s in a bad place, and even though he wants to be able to tell me everything he’s thinking, there’s not much else to say when I know what he means with just those words.

“I miss you,” can mean it, when he’s halfway across the world on a vacation with his family. And maybe it’s just a text, but it’s one that comes in what is the middle of the night where he is, when I know he’s lying in bed, and I know all he’s thinking about is me.

“Sing to me,” can mean it, if he’s tired and about to drift off, and the sound that he wants to hear last before he does is my voice.

We were constantly saying I love you in every single thing that we said to each other, including the literal declarations. It came to the point where I love you came in a touch or a look, no words needed. We built a deeply founded trust and support system between the two of us, but we were still young. It was a year before the subject of sex, real sex, not just messing around, was finally broached.

“Remember when you said you wanted to be my first?” Michael asked. I tensed, wriggling out of his arms to look at him.

“We do have the house to ourselves,” I agreed.

“I’m not saying we have to,” Michael rushed to assure me of his willingness to wait.

“Do you…want to?”

Michael groaned. “You want, like, my honest answer, right?” he mumbled, his face pressed into my chest, muffling his words.

“Of course,” I murmured, fingers rubbing at his scalp.

“I want you so bad, Luke,” he growled quietly. “But if you want to wait, we can.”

“I trust you,” I shook my head. I suddenly felt a little nervous, the way I only got around him when it came to stuff like this.

“I’m gonna take you upstairs, then,” Michael whispered, kissing my neck softly.

“Mikey, I’ve never-“

“I know. It doesn’t matter.” And he was taking me upstairs. And it was slow, and gentle, and definitely not as good as it was going to get as we got better at it, but it was also strangely perfect. I was perfect because I trusted him, and he loved me, and in that moment he wasn’t trying to just get off, he was trying to take care of me, on so many compounding levels.

Soon after that Calum was joining my YouTube videos, and then Michael wanted to join, too, and we sounded pretty good. Then for a gig, one of our first gigs, we added a drummer; Ashton, and, yeah, that was better.

The tour was confusing. It was an almost complete lack of sleep, and strength sapping shows. It could have been absolutely awful. It easily could have been the end of my relationship with Michael, but we had so much already there.

We had these looks on stage, faces a picture of complete and uncontained joy. We had nights cuddled together in a bunk that was too small for one person, but just right for the two of us. We had fleeting moments alone that managed to make us feel like we were kids again, finding any moment to get our hands on each other. All it took to keep us sane were clasped hands on car rides, plane rides, walks out of arenas.

The odds were against us. The stress and pain of touring was against us. If we hadn’t been so goddamned tangled already, we would have ended messily some time in the middle of tour, probably resulting in the end of the band, and then the end of the tour.

And, yeah, marriage wasn’t legal yet in Australia for us. And that hurt more than we thought it would when the topic came up. We thought about doing it somewhere else, the United States, since we had a house in LA anyway, but felt like it wouldn’t be real there. Ultimately, we decided that a piece of paper, though we would jump on the chance when we got it, wasn’t going to tell us that we weren’t bound. We decided that a ceremony would never be able to tangle us together the way we already were. If the tangle wasn’t already there, it wasn’t going to create it.

We knew that I love you didn’t have to be said with those words, or words at all. And we decided it didn’t have to be said by a piece of paper either.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it. That was my longest one yet, which I'm proud of. Let me know what you're thinking, leave kudos and comments, and click through to my other stuff if you want.


End file.
